


Scarlet Pimpernel

by Night_Witch_The_Third



Category: South Park
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Aggressive kissing, Breaking the Fourth Wall, Dancing, Drama & Romance, Eric Cartman Being Eric Cartman, F/M, Fights, High School, Humor, Jealousy, Love/Hate, M/M, Musicals, One-Sided Attraction, PCness, Please Don't Hate Me, Scarlet Pimpernel - Freeform, Singing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-05-13 00:12:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14738433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Night_Witch_The_Third/pseuds/Night_Witch_The_Third
Summary: Wendy convinces Stan and his friends to audition for the high school musical.  But when Stan becomes the lead without Wendy, she finds herself quickly growing jealous of the female lead, Heidi.  And for some reason, Stan is not too thrilled about Clyde playing the villain.  And when Cartman steps in, wanting Heidi back, things get bad really fast.Will the musical go off without a hitch? Or will everything that can go wrong will go wrong? Well, this is South Park, so we all know the answer.





	1. The Auditions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sir_Weston](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sir_Weston/gifts).



> One of my favorite musicals is the Scarlet Pimpernel, and I love imagining who would be which character. And so, I wanted to do this with South Park. Then a plot began to form around the idea, so I decided to write a fan fiction about it. We’ll see how well that goes.

It was senior year of high school. Wendy had been trying every year to get her boyfriend, Stan, to audition for the musical with her, but every year he declined. Until she finally broke him down in their senior year. He didn’t know why she was so adamant about it.  
“Come on, Stan, it will be fun!” she pleaded.  
“Yeah, so much fun,” Stan replied sarcastically, rolling his eyes. “Working long hours after school, getting yelled at by a director, straining your voice, learning complicated routines and in the end, you don’t even get paid for it. That sounds like miles of fun!”  
“It’s the Scarlet Pimpernel this year,” Wendy explained, dragging him along. “There’s lots of action and death, and I’m going to be playing the main female lead! And you could get to be the Scarlet Pimpernel himself.”  
Stan highly doubted that, but he didn’t want to say so out loud. Instead, he could only take solace in the fact that he managed to talk Kyle and Kenny in auditioning with him. He didn’t know if he would have been able to do the musical if he didn’t have at least one of his friends with him. There was no way in hell they could convince Cartman to audition. He kept going on and on about how he should be the one directing, not actually being in the musical because he had “vision,” even though they all knew that it was just because he wanted to boss people around.  
Stan couldn’t decide if he was surprised or not that so many boys were at the auditions. On one hand, they had to continue the façade that they all think musicals were girly, but on the other hand, it was the French Revolution. Heads getting cut off, guns and blood, it was way too tempting.  
Kenny and Kyle were already there, sitting with Craig, Tweek, and Clyde as they waited for Stan and Wendy. Stan made quick work greeting all of them before turning to Tweek in slight confusion.  
“You’re auditioning for the musical, Tweek?” he asked him. Tweek shook his head frantically.  
“No way, man!” he gasped. “Way too much pressure! I’m in the orchestra. I’m just here to play the accompaniment for the auditions.”  
“I still can’t believe you’re making us do this, dude,” Kenny sighed, rolling his eyes. “I just hope I just get an ensemble part and don’t have to do as much.”  
“Stop complaining,” Stan growled. “You didn’t have to do this, you know.”  
More people were still pouring into the auditorium, including the goth kids, who were grumbling about their parents forcing them to do some sort of extra-curricular activity. Then Mr. Mackey and Mr. Adler came in, making their way down the aisle and hushing the crowd. They were carrying a big stack of papers with them, which they started passing out to the kids. Mr. Mackey and Mr. Adler were teaching in high school now because of reasons, and Mr. Mackey had somehow ended up becoming the director of the musical, while Mr. Adler was the choreographer. To Stan’s utter surprise, Cartman was following close behind the two teachers.  
“Cartman?” he called. “I thought you weren’t auditioning for the musical.”  
“I’m not,” Cartman replied, rolling his eyes. “I’m the assistant director. So, you better respect my authority, or else!”  
“Oh great, we’re all screwed,” Kyle muttered under his breath. Speaking up, he added, “How did you manage to bribe Mr. Mackey into letting you be the assistant director, fat ass?”  
“Well, maybe he just saw my natural abilities, Kyle,” Cartman growled at him.  
“You just kept bugging him until he said yes, didn’t you?” Kyle guessed. Cartman glared at him and refused to answer as Mr. Mackey and Mr. Adler made their way up on stage.  
“Mm-kay, folks,” Mr. Mackey stated. “We’re going to get started here as soon as you all finish filling out the forms we handed out. It’s nothing too bad, mm-kay. Just what your experience is, what role you’re auditioning for and your availability. Musicals are a lot of work, mm-kay. You’re going to be putting in a lot of extra hours to make it perfect.”  
“So, you better not start screwing around,” Mr. Adler added. “You all screw around too much.”  
They were all given about twenty minutes to fill out the forms before the two teachers went around and collected them. Then they went and sat behind a huge desk that was in the middle of the auditorium for some reason, muttering quietly to themselves for a moment. Finally, Mr. Mackey stood up and addressed the students.  
“Mm-kay, when I call your name, go up on stage, introduce yourself, and tell us which song you’ll be auditioning with, and which musical it’s from, mm-kay,” he told them. “You only need to sing a verse or two, mm-kay. Tweek, you ready?”  
Tweek gave a nervous squeak before slowly standing and going up onto the stage, sitting down at the piano that was situated there. He did a couple of random scales before turning and nodding to Mr. Mackey.  
“Alright now, Kenny, why don’t you go first, mm-kay?” Mr. Mackey said. Kenny let out a sigh before slowly slumping out of his seat. He slowly shuffled up onto the stage, handing Tweek a piece of music before standing in the middle of the stage.  
“I’m Kenny McCormick, and I’ll be singing ‘Leaning on a Lamp Post,’ from,” he then proceeded to mumble the title through his fist, since he didn’t know what musical that song actually came from (and the author was too lazy to look it up).  
He then proceeded to sing rather well the only lyrics the author could remember (the “oh me, oh my! I hope the little lady comes by!” and “She’s not a girl like that! She’s absolutely wonderful! And marvelous and beautiful…”) before Mr. Mackey said “thank you!” and Kenny quickly hopped off the stage.  
Pete was called up next, it took him a long time to get up on the stage because he slowly shuffled down the aisle from where he sat in the back, and he was forced to start his song, “Music of the Night” from Phantom of the Opera, over twice because he kept mumbling, and a lot of them were shocked with how nice his voice sounded when they could finally hear him.  
Then a few girls were called up, including Bebe, who sang “Gonna Wash that Man Right out of my Hair,” and Red, who sang “On My Own” from Les Miserables. Dougie sang “Oklahoma,” Scott sang “Sixteen Going on Seventeen,” and then Stan’s name was finally called and he couldn’t help but flinch.  
He was acutely aware of everyone staring at him as he went onto the stage and handed Tweek his song. They were all watching him. Judging him. He had no idea how Wendy managed to do this every year.  
Before he could even speak to introduce himself, he heard Cartman shout “Louder!” before being cut off with a sharp “Ow!” after being nudged hard in the ribs by Kyle. He let out a sigh before actually speaking.  
“I’m Stan Marsh, and I’ll be singing ‘I Need to Know’ from Jekyll and Hyde,” he announced. He waited for Tweek to start playing before jumping in.  
Almost immediately, he was surprised by how much conviction was in his voice as he sang. He couldn’t believe that the voice coming out of his mouth was his own, but it was. He could actually remember all of the words, and after a moment, it seemed like the audience had disappeared. All that remained was him and the music. The only thing that snapped him out of it was the sound of applause. He blinked for a moment before realizing that a lot of the other kids had stood to clap for him, including Mr. Mackey and Mr. Adler.  
“Mm-Kay, very good Stan,” Mr. Mackey told him. “Very good indeed.” Stan, suddenly feeling embarrassed, quickly hopped off the stage and took his seat next to Kyle. “Mm-kay, Clyde, how about you go next?”  
Clyde, who had his feet up on the chair on the seat in front of him, let out a slight groan and slowly slumped up onto the stage, forcing his way through Craig who also had his legs up on one of the chairs and refusing to move to let his friend through.  
“I’m Clyde Donovan,” he said after handing Tweek his music. “And I’ll be singing ‘Bring Him Home,” from Les Miserables.”  
Tweek started playing softly, and the moment the first note left Clyde’s mouth, the entire auditorium was on the edge of its seat, enraptured by Clyde’s voice. All of the girls were staring with their mouths hanging open, looking (Stan noticed with annoyance) extremely turned on by Clyde’s singing. Even Cartman and Craig were staring wide-eyed up at him, as if they couldn’t believe that it was really Clyde singing.  
At some point the piano stopped playing and Clyde cut himself off with surprise, turning to Tweek. The twitchy blonde was staring back at him with wide eyes, obviously having forgotten that he was supposed to be accompanying his friend. Craig, from where he sat, blinked several times before looking over at his boyfriend.  
“Um, Tweek?” he called to him. “Tweek?”  
“WHAT? NO, I WASN’T!” Tweek shouted, turning back around in a panic. Craig stared back at him in confusion and Tweek buried his face into the piano in embarrassment. There was a clichéd Disney slow clap as Mr. Mackey, then everyone else stood to applaud Clyde, who nonchalantly hopped down and sat back down next to Craig.  
“Wow, I am so glad I don’t have to sing right after Clyde,” Kenny said, staring over at their friend, who had gone back to laying his feet on the back of a chair. “I mean, I didn’t even know Clyde could sing like that!”  
“It was like an angel,” Wendy agreed, her voice dream-like. “A really deep, powerful, sexy angel.” Stan rolled his eyes.  
“It wasn’t that great,” he grumbled under his breath.  
“Jealous, Stan?” Kenny taunted.  
“No!” he snapped at him, even though he most certainly was jealous. He didn’t know why, it wasn’t like he cared what part he got, and he knew that Wendy wouldn’t leave him for something stupid like being able to sing, but still, Clyde could have toned it down a little. And for some reason it really annoyed Stan that Clyde didn’t appear to care that he had gotten all of the girl’s attention simply by singing.  
Butters was called up onto the stage next, and he cursed softly as he slowly rose, obviously not thrilled about having to sing right after Clyde. Butters, despite stumbling through his song, “I Want to be a Producer,” had a surprisingly soothing and pleasant voice. Nothing great, but it was easy on the ears.  
A couple more nameless characters were called and sang various songs before Craig was called on stage. He had started to fall asleep when his name was called, startling him out of it and he shuffled onto the stage. He gave Tweek a quick kiss on the cheek before handing him his music and went to stand in the middle of the platform.  
“I’m Craig Tucker, and I’ll be singing ‘What do I need with Love?’ from Thoroughly Modern Millie,” he announced. At this, Tweek immediately turned and narrowed his eyes suspiciously at him and he let out a sigh. “It’s just an audition, babe,” he told him.  
Stan and his friends were close enough to the stage to hear Tweek mutter “Yeah, it better be,” under his breath before pounding into the piano. Craig was surprisingly animated when he sang, getting wrapped up in his song until the final note. Then he went back to looking like he couldn’t give a shit.  
Then Wendy was finally called up. She flipped her hair behind her shoulders before standing and making her way on stage. She announced that she would be singing “Think of Me,” from Phantom of the Opera before filling the auditorium with her voice.  
Stan had to admit, she still sang beautifully, even in a simple audition. Stan had seen the musicals she had been in (he had to, she was his girlfriend, after all!) so he knew she sang great, but he was still surprised by it.  
Wendy gave a curtsey when she was done and made her way off the stage. She started back towards Stan, then spotted Heidi and quickly made her way over to her instead.  
“Hey Heidi,” she greeted her friend. “I didn’t know you were auditioning for the musical! You never auditioned before!”  
“I know,” Heidi replied, shrugging with a smile. “But you were always telling me how fun the musical is, so I thought I’d try it this year. Isn’t that great?”  
“That’s awesome,” Wendy replied, though for some reason a feeling of unease went through her. She shook it off. She was happy that her friend was auditioning, and there was nothing to worry about that.  
She sat back down and Kyle was immediately called next. He let out a long sigh, grumbling about how he had just gotten comfortable, and slowly slumped up on the stage. He muttered which song he was going to sing, gave Cartman the middle finger when he immediately started booing him, then started singing “Dancing through Life” from Wicked. Stan was kind of surprised with how beautiful Kyle’s voice was, and he was surprised that his friend didn’t sing more often.  
“Mm-kay,” Mr. Mackey said eventually after several more auditions including Firkle, Mark, and Kenny’s sister Karen (who Kenny just realized was there). “Last but not least we have Heidi Turner. Get on up there, Heidi!”  
Heidi let out a squeal of delight and quickly ran up on stage, only barely remembering to hand Tweek her music. She turned towards the audience of classmates and gave them a smile.  
“I’m Heidi Turner, and I’ll be singing ‘This Place is Mine,’ from Phantom!” she announced. Then everyone sat in shock as a powerful, opera-like voice came out of the small, skinny girl who had never done the musical before. Her classmates were on the edge of their seats as she belted out the last few notes of her song, and immediately broke out into applause when she was done.  
“Mm-kay people, thank you all for your auditions,” Mr. Mackey said once Heidi had sat down and he had taken her place on stage. “Now I want everyone back on stage, mm-kay. Mr. Adler here is going to teach you how to ballroom dance for the musical.”  
Most of the guys let out annoyed groans and everyone slowly started making their way back on to the stage. Pete and Firkle slowly stood to follow their classmates, before realizing that Hennrietta wasn’t following and turned around to face her. She had not moved from her seat and was looking quite relaxed.  
“Aren’t you going to join us?” Pete asked her, confused. Hennrietta gave him a strange, wide-eyed look.  
“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” she replied. “I’m not auditioning for the musical! I’m in the orchestra!” Pete and Firkle’s mouths dropped open as they gaped at her. Her face broke out into an evil grin as she stood up. “Have fun, suckers!” she called to her friends. Then she promptly and quickly turned and left before either of the two of them could even react.


	2. The Casting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone is nervous about who's going to be playing which role. Stan and his friends have to deal with not getting the roles they wanted, and there is some terrible dancing involved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I started this chapter in the summer, and now it’s November. Whoops. So, anyway, here’s the next chapter where I reveal who got which role. Also, there’s some awkward dancing.

Pete and Firkle were grumbling angrily as they joined their classmates up on the stage. Apparently Hennrietta not actually auditioning and calling them “suckers” did not sit well with the two of them. Pete kept casting angry glares at where Hennrietta had left as Mr. Adler walked up onto the stage as well, as if he believed that if he just kept glaring hard enough then she would feel guilty and come back.  
Mr. Adler barked at them all to line up before him, and he walked down the line of students, scrutinizing everything about them. Finally, he stopped in the middle of the stage and turned towards the students. Mr. Mackey stayed where he was in the auditorium.  
“All right, there’s only going to be one real dance scene, so you all need to learn how to ballroom dance,” Mr. Adler stated. Some of the teenagers let out annoyed groans. “So, you better not screw around when learning this! You all screw around too much!”  
He then barked at them to all pair up with someone, and everyone began scrambling to find a partner that wasn’t the same gender as themselves, or could actually look in the eye. Stan found himself face-to-face with Wendy, for which he was grateful. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kyle looked slightly annoyed as Heidi stepped in front of him, and when he turned his head, he could see Cartman glaring at the Jewish boy as if it was his fault that Heidi chose to dance with him. Stan also noticed with annoyance that a couple girls were fighting over Clyde, who ignored them and partnered with Craig.  
Mr. Adler looked at all of them with slight disapproval before beginning to coach them on how not to trip over their own feet while dancing. Stan tried not to look too nervous as he turned towards Wendy and put his hands around her waist. Mr. Adler showed them the exact steps, ordered them to do the same, and watched as almost all of them immediately ran into each other and fell to the ground.  
“You call that dancing?” he sighed. “You’re all screwing around too much!”  
Looking around, Stan realized he was one of the very few who hadn’t tripped over someone. Craig was laying on his back, looking annoyed with Clyde awkwardly on top of him. Pete was rolling his eyes, standing over Firkle who was complaining that he had broken his leg. Butters had fallen into the orchestra pit, and there was a pile up of kids in one corner of the stage. Kyle and Heidi were the only other couple still both on their feet.  
Mr. Adler kept having them all try the dance over and over until they could at least do a few steps without tripping over themselves. By the time Mr. Mackey stepped back up on stage, they were all tired and sore and grumbling. The counselor gave a sigh.  
“Mm-Kay everybody, that was great,” he said. “Now go home and get some rest, mm-kay? The cast list should be posted by Monday.”  
Stan looked around for Kyle and saw him already coming towards him with Kenny close behind him. They were both grumbling and Kenny was rubbing a sore spot on his leg where Annie Knitts had accidentally kicked him.  
“I still can’t believe you talked us into doing the musical,” Kenny grumbled yet again when they had reached Stan’s side. Stan rolled his eyes.  
“And I still keep telling you that you didn’t have to audition,” he pointed out.  
“With the way you were begging us, we really didn’t have any choice,” Kyle replied. Stan glared at him but didn’t say anything to defend himself. “Well, hopefully with any luck we’ll only get bit parts and won’t have to worry about doing too much work.”  
“I know Wendy’s really hoping I get the lead,” Stan sighed. “But I don’t know if I could handle the pressure or all of those eyes staring at me.”  
“Good god, you’re turning into Tweek,” Kenny laughed.

The weekend passed uneventfully, only with the usual South Park stuff. A wormhole had opened up and dinosaurs ran rampant all weekend until an alternate dimension Randy came through and blasted all of the dinosaurs and saved the town. So, you know, nothing exciting.  
The only thing that was on the teens’ minds when they returned on Monday was who would be playing which part in the musical. Mr. Mackey had said that he would be posting his casting choice on the doors of the auditorium. It was an unfortunately small piece of paper with already a huge crowd of people gathered around it.  
Stan and his friends couldn’t even sort of see the list from where they stood from the back of the crowd. People were constantly either sighing with relief or letting out groans of disappointment before walking away. Stan was feeling quite nervous himself. He didn’t want a big part, but he also didn’t want to disappoint Wendy. He just hoped his part was small enough so that he wouldn’t have to do much work, but big enough to please Wendy.  
“Which part are you guys hoping for?” Stan asked his friends, trying to make conversation while they waited to see what parts they got. Kyle shrugged.  
“I’m fine with anything, I guess,” he replied. “As long as Cartman doesn’t boss me around too much I think I’ll be good.”  
“I hope I get the ensemble,” Kenny said simply. Stan rolled his eyes with a sigh.  
“I’m just hoping I’ll get a small role, but big enough that Wendy won’t complain or anything,” Stan told them. “She’s been going on and on about how she wants us to be the leads together, but I don’t think I could handle it.”  
“Well, we’re about to find out,” Kyle pointed out. Indeed, most of the people had dispersed by now, and the three of them found themselves standing next to the goths, who were also looking over the list. Pete was glaring at the list and letting out a cry of outrage as Stan and his friends approached them.  
“What’s the matter?” Stan asked, looking at him with surprise. “You didn’t get into the musical?”  
“No, worse!” Pete growled, his lips drawn back into a snarl and pointing at the list. “I actually got a part!” Stan looked to where he was pointing and saw that Pete had gotten a part as one of the six bounders, in the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel.  
Firkle was also looking quite annoyed, though not nearly as pissed off as Pete, and it was possibly because he had only gotten into the ensemble. Henrietta was standing next to her two friends, trying to look sympathetic, but also looking smug at the same time.  
“Ok, who wants to go first?” Stan asked as the goths sulked off.  
“It was your idea,” Kyle pointed out. “You go first.” Stan glared at him, but didn’t respond as he looked over the list. He let out a groan a moment later.  
“I got the main lead,” he groaned. “The Scarlet Pimpernel himself, Percy.” Kenny patted him on the shoulder.  
“Congrats, dude!” he said in an overly cheerful voice. Stan snarled at him, but he ignored it as he tried to find his own name. His face suddenly changed into that of shock.  
“I got the Prince of Wales?” he questioned. “You see what happens when you make us do shit like this, Stan? We get stuck with speaking roles and everything!”  
“I’ve told you before, you didn’t have to audition,” Stan growled.  
“I got Armand St. Just,” Kyle announced before the argument could escalate. “He’s the brother of the main female lead who’s also in league with the Scarlet Pimpernel. His capture is what gets the two leads to work together and lead to the climax of the play.”  
“How do you know that?” Kenny asked, looking at him in surprise. Kyle rolled his eyes.  
“Because I actually read the synopsis of the musical before auditioning for it,” he said.  
Stan turned and looked over the list again. It looked like Craig, Butters, Jason, Dougie and Scott were also going to part of the Scarlet Pimpernel league. He saw that Bradley and DogPoo were going to be the villain’s minions. And just who was the villain, anyway?  
“Are you going to stare at your name all day?” Kenny asked him, breaking him out of his thoughts. “It’s not going to change no matter how long you stare at it, you know.”  
“I’m reading over the rest of the cast list,” Stan growled, glaring at him. “Unlike you guys, I’m actually interested in who’s going to be in all of the roles.” He went back to the list.  
Chauvelin will be played by Clyde Donovan. For some reason, Stan didn’t like that. His songs were powerful songs, and Stan didn’t enjoy the idea of acting opposite of Clyde. He didn’t know why. Maybe it had been his performance the day before, or his nonchalant attitude towards the entire thing.  
Then he noticed something else that took his mind away from Clyde, and he went pale.  
“Uh oh,” he muttered. His two friends looked at him in confusion. He pointed. “Wendy didn’t get the lead this year,” he told them. “She only got a side role!”  
“Really?” Kyle asked, looking at him in surprise. “Then who did get the main female lead?” Stan paused before answering.  
“Heidi,” he answered in a soft voice. Kyle stared.  
“Wendy is not going to like that,” he stated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m going to end this chapter right here, because I really wanted to get another chapter out now. Plus, I didn’t have a lot to do in this chapter. It took me a while to finish it because I have A LOT on my plate right now. Hopefully the next chapter will be out sooner. We’ll see Wendy’s reaction to one of her closest friends getting the lead role instead of her, and we’ll also hopefully see their disastrous first rehearsal. Don’t ask me why I decided I made Stan jealous of Clyde. I just did.


End file.
